Flight School is an action and reflex game: The player controls an aircraft with his fingers and has to avoid to crash with other flying objects.For each aircraft type there are five tests the player has to pass. The game mechanics are easy to learn, whereas it is still hard to become an elite pilot.

The most important skills for a pilot are focusing on multiple things at once while dodging other objects. How long can you avoid the objects? Do you have what it takes to be a pilot? Test your skills and find out, if you have what it takes to be a pilot.

Prove your skills in 6 different domains:

Paper airplane test

Model aircraft test

Helicopter test

Airliner test

Spacecraft test

Elite test

Pass all 5 tests to master a domain! Pass all tests and become the best pilot in the world.

About MobileBitsMobileBits is an independent game developer and publisher for every platform with an AppStore (iPhone, Android, ...). The 25-people-strong-team is based in Hamburg, Germany and has been developing games since their childhood and now for more than 10 years for PC, XBox360 and the PS3 under the name exDream (see exDream.com). MobileBits now fully concentrates on AppStore-platforms and will be releasing several big budget but also smaller titles in the years to come. For more games from MobileBits please see mobilebits.de/games

No, I am not kidding, after a week of optimizing I just reached almost 3 Mio FPS with our engine. I had to disable Clearing/Present and Input, but this is my log output (thanks to PerformanceCounters this is also pretty accurate):

FPS: 2703785

With Input enabled I can easily go above 200000 FPS, most time of each frame is in whatever platform Input GetState method does:

FPS: 202099

With Present (clear is not needed in my test as I draw a fullscreen quad) it goes down to ~13000 FPS, which is not shabby, but almost all time is lost in Present of XNA 4.0 CTP, which hasn't been optimized a lot yet by the XNA Team (the main module I use currently, but we support many different graphic frameworks as well, XNA is just the best for Windows IMO). Might sound crazy, but for performance checking I disable Present because then I immediately see whats slow in the render code.

FPS: 12680

Other platforms are much worse, but it is always waiting for the graphic card or some external library, so I would say our engine is quite fast as of now. I obviously did not have much enabled in my test (just a test screen drawing a big quad, and Time, Input, Graphic, SceneManager, MaterialManager and Profiling modules enabled), but even doing more stuff does not hurt FPS wise. A more complex 2D screen could still achieve 10000 FPS. Next up is 3D optimization, which is much harder obviously (we are still not fast enough, especially on other platforms).

Apple is a PR genius. What are you doing if you don’t want something to attract great attention? You mix it with other announcements and that’s why apple dropped the bombshell included in the new Terms of Service together with the introduction of all the new shiny new features of iPhone OS4. However John Gruber discovered the new TOS and – thanks to the openeness of the internet – made it public and a lot of developers using Unity3D or MonoTouch around the world veryunhappy. Here is the bombshell:

Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

It basically says: if you want to use our ecosystem/AppStore, you are only allowed to use our tools to create your apps. Since Apple already controlls which apps are allowed to run on your device through the AppStore approval process they are able to enforce this rule. This is unpreceded in the history of of computing – maybe even worse than Microsoft in its darkest hours. Think about it for a minute: what would happen if Microsoft would tell everybody that only programs created with their own language .Net and by using Visual Studio would be allowed to run on your Windows PC? You wouldn’t be allowed to use almost all of your games and half of your applications anymore. You can’t even imagine that this would happen … not in an era where Microsoft is forced to ask users which browser to use when installing windows.

Apples plans looks even worse, when you try to imagine what would have happened if Microsoft would have done the same AppStore + OnlyOurTools approach 10-15 years ago. Netscape to access internet? Does not get approved because it would be possible to watch porn. New programming languages/DBs/tools such as java, ruby on rails, php, mysql and countless others – not approved. We wouldn’t actually even have the current Microsoft tools and languages (visual studio 2010 +.net/c#) because they are essentially microsofts answer to those new languages such as java and others. To sum it up: we would still live in the digital stone age without proper Internet and simple and crashing apps because all those great tools which allow todays complex programs would not have been created. Would you like that?

Apple says they need to enforce the new TOS to foster innovation for the good of the customers. However history clearly teels us that the opposite will be the case. Monopolistic markets who “lock in” the market members instead of constantly persuading them that they are the best will ultimately be much less innovative … Even if you are Apple.

You may also think that this is not too bad because it happens only on the mobile platforms and not on the really important PC. Think again: mobile platforms are the new pcs. In a few years time we probably all be having our tablets and an some type of smartphone – and no more stationary pc or even a laptop (btw: I am writing this on an iPad

You may also argue: it is their product, they can do whatever they want with it. If you don’t like it, just leave the party. This argument would be true, if we were talking about a product. However we are talking about an ecosystem and not only a product. Apple has created a market and in a market the customers should decide which products are worth buying and not some kind of overlord or “benevolent dictator”. If they only wanted to protect their customers, they could just label the “not apple only” products so the customers know he is now trying to play an unsupported game (similar to what Microsoft does when you try to install an unsigned driver). If they dont like bad “flash-like” apps than just dont allow them in the AppStore – you already have a term in your TOS that you can deny apps for all the reasons you want. There is no need to kick out all third party tools which are required to do great apps – especially good games!

Apple and Steve Jobs personally deserve great credit for the introduction of the iPhone, iPad, macbooks and their software and usability. I love their products so much that I – being a pc since my 10th birthday – threw away all my pcs and bought a macbook pro, iPhone, iPad, Mac mini for the tv and a lot of accessoires for these devices. I also persuaded dozends of people to do the same. I even founded a company to work on iPhone apps. I am probably what you call an Apple fanboy.

Being an Apple fanboy it hurts to see that apple repeats microsofts mistakes (and more so) in an era when everybody talks about data portability, openess and competing only with the end user in mind (and not by hindering the competition). In short: the “don’t be evil” mantra by google.

Since we are currently developing an awesome ipad game with MobileBits , it was essential for us to get our hands on the device early (at least for Europe). We have our Ipads now since the 6. April .. not bad

So what is my first impression of the device? Overall it is clearly a winner – you feel you have the future in your hands .. at least the first version of it There are quite a few #fails in the product in the current status. Here is my first impression after playing around with it for almost 24 hours:

Some of the new native Apps are awesome (e.g. YouTube App) .. some not so much (e.g. Mail app)

#fails

charging seems to take ages (at least with my iPhone cable and while the iPad is running) .. have been charging now for 2 hours and only got like 10% more battery power

Reports about “overheating issues” are true. Just tested the device in the sun (but only around 18 degrees) for lunch and it took only about 30 minutes and i got the “overheating” message. This sucks!

Screen is not great in the sun but you can still read a book. Reflections are annoying. Amazon Kindle is probably much better in this regard.

Probably my biggest complain: the iPad is quite heavy! It is a little bit too heavy to hold it comfortably in one hand .. in this regard it feels like an old Nokia cellphone like N95 which had all the great features but was just too big and too heavy to carry around. Lucky iPad: it does not want to be carried around much .. however i want to be able to hold it in one hand comfortably … this would be much more elegant!

Auto-Brightness does not work as it should be … yesterday evening it was too bright for my eyes. Software will probably fix this.

Multitasking is missing .. however this thursday will probably fix this

Dont like the virtual keyboard .. even though i do like the iPhone virtual keyboard. Currently I cant imagine writing a long email, blog post etc. with this virtual keyboard … we’ll see

General thoughts:

I want an 3G iPad .. sucks to sit outside in the bar and not be able to surf the internet. I guess this is one of the main USPs

We will see totally different apps for the iPad than for the iPhone. Especially the games feel totally different. We need different controls and also different type of games. Especially multiplayer games on one iPad will be huge on the iPad

Overall the iPad so far was great for me in the following situations:

reading a book sitting outside in the sun for lunch

in the train watching a movie

sitting on the couch at home surfing the internet

So it is a great device and will be even better in the years to come .. Steve has enough open improvements to bring a new better version every year

Sorry for not posting much about our current multi-platform engine (the Delta Engine), but we just got our Ray Tracer working on the iPhone with more than 50fps (in 480x320).Here is a quick screenshot, expect more to come in the next year at this exact date :)